It's not until you sit down to draw up a wedding guest list that you appreciate how damned determined everyone is to keep up the hoary old tradition of addressing couples as "Mr. and Mrs. His Full Name." Why are people still so stuck on this?

Taking a husband's name may mean taking a hit in the labor market, according to a recent study. But lower salary isn't the only ill effect women suffer when they switch surnames — or, conversely, when they don't.

Screenwriter Kris Dyer married his girlfriend Jo Myddleton last October. Since he thought his last name was "rubbish," he decided to change his surname to Myddleton, and surprisingly the most irritating part of the process was not the bureaucratic leaps and bounds Kris had to go through to change his name, it was the…